Beyond 'Black Panther': A brief history of Afrofuturism

Excited for Black Panther? So are we. Which is why we’re rolling out obsessive coverage with Black Panther Week.

Among the images glimpsed in Marvel’s first Black Panther trailer was a tribal elder in an emerald suit with a matching lip disc, a body modification found in the Suri and Mursi tribes of Ethiopia.

Warriors draped in blue “blankets” (or Seanamarena) soon followed, drawn from the Basotho peoples of South Africa. Alongside them were women in red beaded war garb – the Dora Milaje, Black Panther’s female Royal Guard – their vivid outfits remixed from the Maasai ethnoculture of Kenya and Tanzania. Read more…